lib-ir: contacting faculty

["JQ Johnson" <jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu>]

It occured to me that others might be interested in the way I formulated my
questions for cold calls to faculty.  Here's a typical initial contact by
email (I'll do some of mine face to face instead).  Note that I rephrased
the questions slightly.

-----Original Message-----
From: JQ Johnson [mailto:jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 9:10 AM
To: Janis Weeks; Bill Roberts
Subject: institutional repositories


Janis and Bill,

Hi.  If you have a few moments, I need your opinions.

The library is beginning to explore the idea of establishing an
"institutional repository" -- a centrally maintained digital archive where
faculty could deposit scholarly works (and works in progress) and associated
materials (e.g. datasets).  We'd make it available (notably, using the Open
Archives Initiative protocol for locating materials) and preserve it.  For
lots of information on institutional respositories, see for instance
http://www.arl.org/sparc/IR/ir.html.  To a first approximation, think of the
service as being akin both to a centrally maintained webserver (taking the
burden of website maintenance off the individual researcher) and to a
preprint server like arXiv.  For an example, see MIT's DSpace.

Anyway, we're interested in better understanding what faculty at UO are
currently doing about making their scholarship and data available thru
non-peer-reviewed mechanisms, and in whether there would be demand for an
institutional repository at UO, so we're doing a bit of informal polling.
If you have a moment, I'd appreciate any thoughts you have.  To focus the
question better, we're particularly interested learning:

 - are you personally doing any web based publication?
 - who else in your department should we be talking to?  Are there biology
faculty who are particularly active in making their work available on line?
Are there faculty who are particularly interested in the scholarly
publishing industry?
 - what are the impediments to doing this and what kinds of services would
you like to see on campus to make this easier?
 - are there any preprint archives that you’re contributing to or using?
 - are there grant-related issues in your area, e.g. policies on data
deposit, that would be affected by a library repository?  How about journal
copyright issues?
 - what’s going on in your discipline in this area? does your department or
institute produce tech reports?  are the professional organizations in your
discipline active in this area?
 - what formats are you using for materials that you make available on line?

If you don't want to spend a lot of time answering by email but have
thoughts on this you're willing to share, let me know and I'll give you a
call or walk next door to ask you in person.


JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  mailto:jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       phone: 1-541-346-1746; -3485 fax
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/